Hi,

About a week and a half ago, I read one of the more resonating books I’ve read in a long time - it’s called Chop Wood Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf.

It was recommended to me by an artist I had the pleasure of interviewing recently and the themes really resonated with me. I thought the general concepts were also relevant to artists and creative professionals everywhere.

This newsletter highlights:

Let's dive in ⬇️

For context, the book is a fairly short parable about someone named John who travels to Japan to train as a samurai archer under a sensei named Akira.

The book is a pretty easy read - I finished it in just over a day and it was enjoyable. I won’t summarize the whole thing but figured it’s worth pulling out the ideas that resonated with me the most.

The title and concept is essentially the theme of the whole book.

The phrase is an old Zen saying that means: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

Essentially, chopping wood and carrying water represent the small, repetitive but necessary chores required to survive and maintain life (like cooking, cleaning, or working). These tasks remain the same no matter how wise, successful, or spiritually evolved you become.

The concept had a few meanings to me:

a) Not skipping steps - John shows up wanting to be a samurai and almost immediately asks his sensei Akira when he gets to be one. When Akira tells John he must start by “chop wood and carry water”, John is confused…why does he need to do that when he’s trying to be a samurai archer? How long does he have to do that for? He imagines the life of a samurai archer being exciting and thrilling, while meanwhile his days become full of mundane, repetitive work that feels completely unrelated to the thing he came for.

Akira stresses that chopping and carrying water are the foundational steps to becoming a samurai archer, even if it doesn’t feel like they contribute meaningfully. John learns that he can’t skip steps and greatness requires the patience to follow the path even if you don’t understand it.

b) Who you become in the process - as the story progresses, it becomes clear that the mundane work was actually part of the training. He becomes a samurai through thousands of small, boring actions stacked on top of each other. Chopping wood and carrying water is the most basic and simplest form of that idea, but aside from those tasks, he also engages in and completes thousands of other small unexciting tasks. He became the person he wants to be through those actions as opposed to waking up one day and just becoming a samurai archer. It actually takes him 10 years to become that version of himself.

c) Humility - even when John becomes skilled enough to become a samurai archer, he still needs to chop wood and carry water. He does it for so long over the years that he eventually comes to enjoy it. He genuinely enjoys the process of doing the mundane tasks and no matter how successful he becomes, those tasks never become beneath him.

It might sound a little abstract but I think almost everyone in music has some version of John in them (including myself). To some degree, we're all wondering when we get to be the thing - whether that's an artist, a full-time creator, or an exec with a big title. The answer the book gives is uncomfortable but freeing:

You don't get to be it.

You become it…one step at a time, even when it feels like nothing's happening.

If you're an artist: you're not waiting to become an artist until you have a certain amount of streams or views or play X amount of shows. You become one every time you do the uncomfortable and mundane actions that no one sees - writing the song, shooting content, editing your own stuff, rehearsing your show, etc.

If you're a creator: the creator with 100k followers didn't become a creator at 100k. They became one around video 30, when posting started becoming a habit regardless of how many views they got.

If you're a creative professional: the title comes after the behavior, not before it. The person who's already acting like the executive by helping to make plays and follow-up is the one who gets promoted into the role.

At one point in the story, Akira tells John how bamboo trees work.

You plant it, water it every day, and for years you see nothing happening above the ground. Then…almost overnight, it shoots up to around 90 feet in a matter of weeks.

The lesson is that while it seemed like nothing was happening above ground on the surface, in reality we just couldn't see that the root system was spreading underground the whole time. Without those roots, the tree would never be able to hold up that kind of growth. Lots of people give up on their own bamboo tree before it ever gets a chance to grow above ground.

This is literally the music industry in a nutshell LOL. Everyone sees the viral moment, the sold-out tour, or the "overnight success” (aka the bamboo tree shooting above ground) but no one saw the years of roots.

Growth without roots doesn't just come slower, it actually collapses. We've all watched an artist get a massive song before they were ready for it. The song went 90 feet tall and there was nothing underneath to hold it up.

These are called the Bamboo Years. They’re not necessarily the waiting period before your career starts - it’s the part where you're building the thing that lets your career last.

If you're an artist: your roots are your catalog, your live show, your relationships with other artists, and knowing who you are. Build those now so a moment turns into a career instead of a one-off viral moment.

If you're a creator: your roots are your format, your voice, and a small group of people who become part of your community.

If you're a creative professional: your roots are your reputation and your network, built through years of doing good work for people who'll remember it.

There's a page in the book with three simple graphs:

The staircase style line comes from George Leonard's book Mastery, and it's a very real depiction of a creative career. Up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, etc.

As Akira puts it, mastery moves "in steps, not constants."

Most people quit when it plateaus or dips before they even have a chance to spike again.

If you're an artist: monthly listeners that go flat for eight months doesn't mean it's over. You can experience growth in other ways.

If you're a creator: views stuck at the same number for months is the most common plateau. Check whether your hooks, pacing, and editing are improving. If they are, keep going. If they aren't, change something in your formatting.

If you're a creative professional: two years at the same title feels like stalling. But if you're handling bigger problems and running bigger projects, you're still growing.

This was one of my favorite analogies in the book.

Akira explains how golf balls used to be made perfectly smooth with no blemishes.

Then one day somebody noticed that beat-up, scuffed balls that had been hit a bunch of times were flying farther and faster than the new ones. After some research, it turns out those little imperfections created a thin layer of turbulence that helped the ball move faster. Fast forward to today and that's why every golf ball today has “dimples”. Crazy right? lol.

It’s what’s known as the Dimple Effect. There's a line in the book that talent "is often more of a curse than a blessing." Reason being is that when things come too easy, you skip putting in the work that actually builds the skillset. (This lines up with The Talent Code issue I wrote a while back: the reps and the mistakes are what helps us learn.)

While on their journey, Akira gives John two rules.

I loved the idea of grass being greener where you water it because in modern society, especially with how much emphasis there is on social media and comparing yourself to others, it’s so easy to feel like the grass is greener.

etc etc

When in reality, it’s all about your perspective. The grass is greener where you water it - meaning the grass being green (ie success or growth) happens in areas of life that you put time, attention, and hard work into as well as show gratitude for.

As someone who is ambitious and constantly feels like I’m not doing enough, this one resonated with me deeply even though it’s a simple concept (and not exactly new). For example - I could look at me staying with my family at 36 years old and say the grass is greener elsewhere by comparing myself to other people my age who may appear to be more successful or farther along on the surface.

Or…I can water my own grass and look at it how lucky am I that I get to have this period of my life where I get to spend so much time and be so present with family. It’s a chapter that I may never had the opportunity to experience and completley reframes the perspective.

The grass is greener where you water it - where you show gratitude and appreciation for.

In music, the comparison game is actually insane. Like literally insane lol. We're constantly comparing ourselves to everyone else. How many followers they have, how many streams we’re getting, how many monthly listeners, how much engagement their post is getting, etc etc.

It’s important to remember that while striving for more is okay, it’s important not to lose gratitude for what we have.

The biggest takeaway for me personally was the idea of the journey.

As someone who is ambitious and sometimes feels like life will get easier, better, etc when I reach THE GOAL or do THE THING down the road, the book was a great reminder that it’s not about the end goal, but who you become in the process and enjoying the day-to-day of it all. Enjoying the small things, and being present enough for them on the journey, that over time they help shape you into the person you want to become.

Without sounding corny…it was a great reminder that life is happening right now.

Not in X years when I make more money. Or catch up to so and so. Or achieve that thing. It’s happening right now and who you become in the process is part of how you get to where you’re going.

The character John spent the whole book asking when he would get to be a samurai. It’s funny that the answer was that he already was becoming one, he just didn’t realize it because it was taking the form of showing up every single day doing boring stuff.

I promise I'm not getting paid by the author by the way lol. It's just one of those books that helps reframe the grind and enjoying the journey.

Hopefully this was helpful on your journey.

Thanks for reading, until next time.